Long Nights
by what-is-a-social-life
Summary: The two longest nights in Cosette's life have a lot in common. Letters. Confusion. Tears. Her papa. Marius. And death.


**DISCLAIMER: Funnily enough, I, an American female high school student living in the year 2016, am not Victor Hugo, or Claude Michel-Schonberg, or anyone else who has any claim to** _ **Les Misérables.**_

 **A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea.**

 **This is based off of the musical, with influences from the book and 2012 film.**

* * *

"Papa? Who was at the door?" Cosette asks, peeking her head out of her bedroom door. She's supposed to be asleep, but she's been restless for hours now, unable to stop thinking about Marius.

"I have to go," he says, looking around until he finds his coat. "Stay inside tonight, Cosette. Please. And keep this near you at all times," he says, setting a gun down on the table.

Since when had her papa owned a gun?

"Papa, please tell me what's going on," she begs, reaching for the gun she doesn't know how to fire with shaking hands. Instead of answering, he hands her a piece of paper with her name on it. He presses a long kiss to her head and holds her close. She doesn't understand what's happening, but she has enough sense to wrap her arms tightly around him like this is her last chance to do so.

"I love you, Cosette," he whispers.

"I love you, too," she promises, gripping him tighter. He pulls away, but keeps his hands on her shoulders, staring at her face intently. "Tell me what's going on, Papa."

He still doesn't answer her, but kisses her again before running out the door. She can hear it lock, and she looks back down at the table. The gun is still there, but the piece of paper is what catches her attention. She quickly realizes it's a letter, and she freezes when she sees what the letter contains.

 _Dearest Cosette, you have entered my soul and soon you will be gone. Can it be only a day since we met and the world was reborn? If I should fall in the battle to come, let this be my goodbye… Now that I know you love me as well, it is harder to die… I pray that god will bring me home to be with you. Pray for your Marius. He prays for you._

She doesn't know where her father is going, but she has an awful sense of foreboding that he's gone to the barricades that the schoolboys had set up. The barricades Marius is currently at.

The night doesn't seem to want to end. She sits at the table all night, the gun in her hand. She has no idea how to use it and can't find any information on it in her books. If someone gets in, she doesn't have a plan beyond pulling the trigger and praying it works.

Her head snaps up when she hears someone rattling the door knob. She snaps up, holding the gun out in front of her.

"Cosette! Cosette, open the door!" a voice shouts.

"Papa?" she asks, lowering the gun and running to the door, but she stops before opening it. What if it isn't him? It sounds like him, but what if it isn't? What if something absolutely completely terrible has happened and it's not really him? What if it's the police, or, or, or...

A million thoughts run through her head at lightning speed. What if she's wrong? There must be someway she can find out without having to open the door… "Papa, what was the first thing you gave me?"

"A doll. You named her Levanna," he replies, and the doors flies open. Cosette is about to launch herself into his arms when she notices him.

"Marius!" she cries, reaching forward to help her father. She gets the mud and everything else they are covered in all over her nightgown, but she doesn't care. She leads her father to her room and he sets Marius down on her bed. She races to fill a bowl with water and she keeps thinking _he's going to die he's going to die he's going to die_.

"Cosette…"

"You need to find a doctor," she tells her father without looking at him as she begins to wrap strips of cloth she tears from her dressing gown around his wounds. "And his grandfather. Find his grandfather, he has money, he can… he can help…"

"Cosette," her father repeats, and she turns to look at him. He takes a step back, so she must look like a mess. She doesn't care, not tonight.

"His grandfather. Monsieur Gillenormand. They've had falling outs but… But he has to help."

The night is long. They eventually move Marius to his grandfather's house. He asks after some of the friends he thinks might still be alive. She shakes her head and holds him as he sobs. They sleep in the same room, propriety be damned, because if her father or Monsieur Gillenormand realized what a difference that has made in his sleeping ability, they wouldn't care, either. Her father asks her not to tell Marius about what happened that night. She wholeheartedly agrees.

* * *

They plan to marry the following February. Her father leaves shortly after Christmas. She doesn't know why, but she knows Marius does. It irks her, but she trusts her father, and she trusts Marius. If they ever decide to tell her, she will understand why they waited so long. She thinks.

His grandfather's wife (Not his grandmother, Marius makes it clear, as she died a few years before) makes them spend the night apart. The rooms still adjoin, however, and when she hears him start to cry, she gets up out of bed and joins him in his. She escapes back to her room come morning.

The wedding isn't as simple as she knows they both wanted it to be, but it is still incredibly nice and she's happy, genuinely happy. She hadn't been sure she would be, without her father and with Marius wanting so many people to be there who were dead and gone. He'd even cried about it the night before.

If she was being honest, she did, too.

He doesn't tell her where they're going until they reach the carriage, and even then, he doesn't tell her as much as he tells the carriage driver to take them to the convent.

"The convent?" she says to him, laughing, "We're already wed, Monsieur Pontmercy!"

"I know, Madame Pontmercy," he replies with a smile that sends shivers down her spine, "There's someone we need to see."

"'Someone we need to see?' Who could we… My father. Why is he- How do you-" He kisses her and by the time he pulls away, she's breathless.

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course," she replies, almost offended that he would think otherwise. He grins that impish grin again and she almost loses it.

She cries and cries for what feels like hours after it happens. When the tears stop falling, she starts to open the letter she'd crushed with shaking hands. Marius reaches out and grabs her hands before she can finish.

"Do you want me to…" he trails off when she shakes her head. He leans forward and kisses her. "I'm right here."

"I know, and I thank you, but can you find the priest, or a nun? They need to know," she says quietly, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. It may be ruining her wedding gown, but she doesn't care.

He nods, almost as if he senses the silent plea to be left alone, and leaves. She opens the letter the rest of the way and reads. She cries some more, and she reads, and Marius returns with a nun just as she finishes.

"Madame Pontmercy? Are there any arrangements you need made for Monsieur Fauchelevent?" the nun asks. Based on what she just read, she almost forgets that's what everyone knows them as. _Well_ , she thinks forlornly, _used to know us as._

"My wife has had a long day, Sister," Marius interrupts, indicating what she was sure was a ruined wedding gown and a horrible-looking face. "May we return tomorrow?"

"Of course," the nun says. Marius helps her stand up and keeps his hand firmly against her back. Without it, she's not entirely sure she would still be standing.

The carriage they came in is still waiting outside and he helps her into it. She clings to him once they're both settled in for their return to his grandfather's house.

"How did you get through your father's death?" she asks quietly.

"I was very young. I don't remember him the way you do," he replies.

"Then how did you get through everything else that's just happened?" she asks instead.

"You," he says, kissing the top of her head. She tightens her grip on him and breathes him in.

They have many long nights ahead of them, between their grief and all the children she hopes they will have some day. She doesn't mind, though. Not in the least.


End file.
